Friday, January 30, 2009

The Email PropositionSome of you may know and some of you may not know, so I’m telling you now. I was asked by my lovely, fabulous cousin-in-law to appear as a model on the Today Show for the Winter Sale segment this past Wednesday, January 28th to be exact. Yes, I know. I do have family in high places. My, cousin-in-law, well we’ll call her Mrs. Fabulous is the Vice President of Corporate Communications at Bauer Publishing Group. Yes, I know. I definitely should be begging her for a job right now. But that is beside the point, I felt obliged to accept the opportunity since she was in dyer need. Hell, I wasn’t doing much of anything when she sent the “I really need your help” email on Monday afternoon. So, I rushed down to the meat packing district for a quick fitting with the stylist/editor who was running the show as far as the fashion was concerned.

The “Totally Hot” Green RoomBy Wednesday morning, I was all set. Ready for my five minutes of fame! I arrived promptly at NBC studios by 7:15am, where I was directed to a green room on the ground level. It was awesome! There was food, food and more food. As well as loads of bottled water, hot water for coffee and tea with any condiment your heart desired. Look, I know how to conduct myself in these situations. I’ve assisted on a few photo shoots in my day with the same kind of spread. But something about this particular green room seemed so exciting. Maybe it was due to the fact that I got a glimpse of the behind the scenes stuff as if I were the “star”. I peeked in on Martha Stewart getting her hair done; witnessed Julianne Moore’s fitting for her segment, and even met eyes with Kevin Connolly (Eric) of HBO’s show, Entourage. Entourage it’s one of my favorite cable shows, so I definitely felt the urge to hug him when he entered the room. Yes, hugging him would have been bizarre. I just smiled and said “hi” instead.

My Five Minutes of FameThe best part of my day was being on set observing the producers, camera men and anchors do their responsible duties. Al Roker even said “hello” to me and the other model in passing. The entire experience was fantastic. Now, it was my turn. The camera was slowly panning toward me on the set. My heart began to pound faster and faster; harder and harder. I was ready! This was my time to shine! I was determined to be the best writer turned TV model on the Today Show! I wanted to do it for my family and friends! I wanted to do it for the audience at home! I wanted to do it for all the normal people “like myself” who only had one chance to make an impression on television! Head up, hands in coat pockets and smile for the camera is what I told myself.

But all I can remember was the anchorwoman saying, “Let’s show our model Joey over here…” Everything else was a blur.

Your ThoughtsPlease check out the segment for yourself and tell me your thoughts in the comment section. Let's keep it honest. I was only able to load a portion of it due to video file size requirements on blogger. However, if you want to see the full segment, click the link below.